Kilifi County to scale down services after staff contract Covid-19

Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi has sent an unspecified number of county employees home for a two-week leave after 6 county employees and 24 health workers contracted Covid-19. 

He said county government operations will be scaled down by reducing the number of officers handling members of the public in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease.

While addressing the press outside his office after holding a meeting with his Cabinet and top county health officials, Mr Kingi said the county officers and health workers contracted Covid-19 while in the line of duty.

"The pace at which Covid-19 is spreading here in Kilifi and the entire country is worrying," he said.

"In line with this, we shall reduce the number of staff for two weeks since we are also carrying out contact tracing to establish the number of people who have contracted the virus," he added.

He said that only a few officers will remain in the county government offices to offer urgent and crucial services within the next two weeks.

He advised county employees to go for voluntary Covid-19 testing within the two weeks.

During the two-week leave, Mr Kingi said the Covid-19 frontline team will also fumigate all county offices and carry out contact tracing of people linked to the six county officers.

Mr Kingi said Covid-19 cases in the county have so far risen to 504 since March this year.

"Most of these cases were recorded recently in what is seen as a second wave of the coronavirus disease," he said, adding "during the first wave, we used to record about four or five cases in a day."

Magarini leads

Mr Kingi said Magarini Sub-County is leading with 110 cases followed by Malindi which has recorded 93 cases.

"The rising Covid-19 cases have overwhelmed our health workers and the satellite laboratory at Malindi Sub-County referral hospital," he said adding "the number will keep on rising if we do not observe Covid-19 protocols and guidelines."

Mr Kingi said the county government might soon be forced to increase the number of health workers to address the Covid-19 crisis in the county. He said some of the health workers have been working up to 2am at the isolation centres and laboratories.

"We are also holding discussions with Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) and WellcomeTrust in Kilifi to begin testing samples for Covid-19 after they scaled down testing," he said, adding: ''We are currently taking samples to Malindi for testing, which sometimes take up to five days for one to receive results."

Mr Kingi said increasing testing capacity at Kemri will reduce the number of people getting into contact with Covid-19 patients since one will be able to know results after 24 hours only.

"I want to remind people that the corona virus is real, some people are making fun of it saying it's a scam. Don't wait until you bury a person in your home to begin washing hands, wearing masks and social distancing," he added.

Mr Kingi said they will also hold a sitting with stakeholders and come up with a resolution that might compel salt firms in Magarini to host truck drivers in their companies once they visit to transport salt after they were fingered as the main cause of increased Covid-19 infections in the sub-county. 

"The most hit wards in Magarini are Sabaki, Magarini and Gongoni within the salt belt," he said, adding that the number also increased after a foreigner visiting San Marco Space Centre at Ngomeni for work came into contact with workers, thereby infecting them with the virus.

At the same time, he advised residents to help curb the spread of the disease by minimising the number of people attending burials, and ferrying bodies from mortuaries, among other guidelines issued by the ministry of health. 

"We can fight and defeat Covid-19 by observing the prescribed protocols," he said.